Thoughts on Tomato Varieties for Canning
 

Hi All,

Every year I can about two bushels of tomatoes for my family. After a few years of gardening I have yet to get all of those tomatoes from my own garden. I grow heirloom tomatoes and was wondering if this wonderful group would have any thoughts on good varieties to grow for canning purposes. I am looking for a tomato (preferably OP but am open to trying a hybrid) that is high yielding with a good general tomato flavor. I have plenty of very flavorful tomatoes and would prefer to eat them fresh. I live in Pennsylvania. I've seen Costoluto Genovese mentioned as a good variety for canning, any other thoughts? Thank you!

You might try some hearts. They tend to be meaty, with few seeds, and they also tend to yield well. There are a lot of red oxheart types. I like Wes and George Detsikas Italian Red. Anna Maria's Heart is a very good pink.

Kosovo is a staple in my garden for canning. It is a large, meaty and tasty heart with very little scabs, cracks or core, perfect for canning. It is also one of the earliest and most productive tomatoes I have grown, last year averaging 22 pounds per plant.

TomNJVA

Paste tomatoes
Big Mama F1
Olpalka
San Marzano

Hearts
Wes
Japanese Oxheart
George Detsikas

Use excellent tasting varieties, if they are juicy just cook them down. We do a 100 quarts of spaghetti sauce, and about the same of tomato slop. We found that great tasting varieties taste really good coming out of those jars in mid winter.
We have used all Brandywine, all Early Girl, all Chapman, etc, etc, and many mixes of varieties, it really is worth the time to use the best. Been at this for sometime too.

I have to agree Mark. For several years I combined all the tomatoes I grew for salsa/sauce etc and it was amazing. This past season I grew a ton of small roma types and canned almost exclusively with those, the taste was nowhere near what it was when I used w/e I had. I did this because I was selling all of my best tomatoes this year so all I had were red plum and red hybrids left for processing.

On the plus side it was much less work since all the fruit was uniform and thick skinned (easy to peel) but the results were disappointing. That being said some of my favorites are:

Wes
Indian Stripe
Prudens Purple

The best salsa I ever made was these 3 combined. If you save seeds you can get rid of most of the juice before processing anyway so beefsteaks work fine.

One of the best salsas I have ever had was orange Russian.
Worth

The last time I tried to cook down a pot of juicy heirlooms, it sat on the stove too long and oxidized, turned a brownish maroon. I added liquid smoke and called it bbq sauce. I think next time I will let the juice sit in the fridge overnight to separate and pour off the water.

Sounds like it needed some mineral oil in it.:twisted:

Worth

I want to can some Porter tomatoes. [URL]http://www.tomatogrowers.com/PORTER/productinfo/3139/[/URL]

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;603666]The last time I tried to cook down a pot of juicy heirlooms, it sat on the stove too long and oxidized, turned a brownish maroon. I added liquid smoke and called it bbq sauce. I think next time I will let the juice sit in the fridge overnight to separate and pour off the water.[/QUOTE]

That helps a lot. I squeeze all of mine to save the seeds and do the juice into one pot and then process. Then I let the processed puree sit until the thinner liquid separates. Pour that off and it doesn't take that long to get it the way you want it. I found that cutting some chunks to add in at the end helps the consistency as well.

BVV, the big beefsteaks are pretty easy to peel after being scalded for a a few seconds, and the slop adds up fast. We are hooked, we are super picky now, only the best go in the jars.
Cole, we cook our for about an hour for slop, but we cook our spaghetti sauce for 6-8 hours, barely simmer the sauce. Put your onion in right away, add the bell peppers about an hour before your done, spice the rest to your style. mmmm

I save all my excess tomatoes in freezer bags in the freezer, then when I'm ready to make sauce, I take out 5 bags. I run them under the hot tap to remove the skins and let them sit in colanders in large coolers for a couple of days. This removes a ton of liquid and reduces the cooking time needed to make sauce.

Thank you all, I'm already planning next year's garden and this has given me some great food for thought. I have been growing a variety called German Strawberry that produces huge, meaty fruit that I have enjoyed using for canning. It's yield was always fairly low until we had an uncharacteristically cool summer. That year it cranked out the fruit.

[QUOTE=AKmark;603695]BVV, the big beefsteaks are pretty easy to peel after being scalded for a a few seconds, and the slop adds up fast. We are hooked, we are super picky now, only the best go in the jars.
Cole, we cook our for about an hour for slop, but we cook our spaghetti sauce for 6-8 hours, barely simmer the sauce. Put your onion in right away, add the bell peppers about an hour before your done, spice the rest to your style. mmmm[/QUOTE]
I did that for years Mark but now I prefer broiling them, halved, skin side up. It really reduces the water content compared to the hot water method, but it also makes the kitchen hot as hell. I just liked it better as it is less work with straining and cooking down, but be ready to sweat if your doing a lot :twisted: You can see the skins to the corner in the 2nd pic. They just peel right off after 5 mins in oven.

A couple years back I tried Roma...production and meatiness okay, but the taste was bland. This year I tried San Marzano; it tasted okay but yield was lacking. So far, plums don't suit me. I tried Rutger's select this year; they had a nice thick wall and decent taste, but they came in really late compared to others and overall production was low. The first wave of them was picked after the second wave of most others. That Kosovo sounds good; I'll have to look if I received any of those seeds from Tormato last Spring.

The backbone of our sauce/soup production of late is big beef F1, and the last two years, Estiva F1. Trenched into CRW cages, the main stems get huge and support a lot of tomatoes through three big waves despite the blight. This year my brother's estivas had half dollar size stems after 2 weeks in the ground. Those two hybrids produce nice reliable pollination and therefore reliable yields with good taste. They are juicy, so not ideal in that regard for sauce, but taste is more important.

The heirlooms like mortgage lifter, brandywine, cherokee purple are great in sauce too, however they are more flat with the ridges/lobes. With the weather and disease here in SE PA, a higher percentage of them get cut away versus the rounder big beef and very round, uniform estiva. The heirlooms get picked first for sandwiches, but also tend to rot in a shorter time on the counter than the F1s. Brandywine in particular I have had trouble with getting good pollination, three years now, although last season was fair.

Next season I am going to repeat the heirlooms we like, probably add some more from seeds acquired last Spring, but will still hedge with Big Beef F1. I bought a big pack of them last year, but I think the Estiva were used up.

At this point, if I only grew one heirloom for everything it would be Mortgage Lifter, but the way we grow them, I figure I'd only get 1/2 to 2/3 of the overall yield compared to those F1s. I would be satisfied with an all Big Beef garden if it came down to it.

This was the first year I started all my own plants, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, okra, everything. It was hectic but fun. I grew for three gardens. Make that four - I forgot about taking plants to a buddy in Coatesville for their first garden. I also gave away a few groups of 4-5 big beef plants to friends that normally buy plants. The plants I gave them were mostly in 2" soil blocks or potted up, laid over leggy and rearing to go. I explained how to trench them in, water when dry, but don't drown them everyday. It sure was a kick to be told in August/Sept how amazing their tomatoes turned out, had so many they had to give away, couldn't believe the size of the plants, everyone told them they were the best ever, etc. We are in a good area for tomatoes, that's for sure. As long as you get them off to a good start, and water when needed, there should be plenty, mid July through mid Sept.